After watching the first ten minutes of Netflix’s Damsel, I had the entire plot mapped out. About halfway through the movie, I figured out the ending. This is more like giving you a dot-to-dot colouring book and crayons than it is about subverting your expectations.

Elodie, portrayed by Millie Bobby Brown, is an innocent young princess who spends her days in a lavish castle with her younger sister. However, not everything is well in the magical kingdom. Her subjects are struggling and so is her family, led by her father (Ray Winstone) and stepmother (Angela Bassett). A miracle is needed to save them. A marriage proposal appears out of nowhere from a handsome prince (Nick Robinson) who lives in a faraway kingdom. This prince wants to marry Elodie so the queen (Robin Wright) can have full reign over her. 

Everything seems to be going well until the groom throws Elodie into a cave before she can write her vows and add a food blender to the gift list. It turns out the marriage is part of an ancient ritual, and Elodie has been offered as a sacrifice to a dragon. The remainder of the film follows Elodie as she attempts to escape while the fire-breathing monster pursues her. 

The story of Damsel is a ‘re-imagining’ of the classic fairy-tale. This is a tween-age adaptation of the left-for-dead revenge thriller. Watching a young, naive woman transform into a female Rambo by overcoming a series of physically demanding challenges is one of the most common ways to sprinkle a little feminism into the narrative. While most stories have subtext, this one smacks you right in your stupid male face. The entire film is a celebration of girl power. The queen rules the kingdom with an imperious tone, and Elodie’s mixed-race stepmother controls the family – even the dragon is a woman. 

Although the kingdom looks nice, the animation is not very good. Whoever is responsible for the CGI should be fired immediately. The dragon moves like an obese ballet dancer, with all the grace and poise. Her intimidating power is comparable to that of Godzilla in the 1966 Kaiju movie Godzilla vs the Sea Monster. She’s also a little dim and falls victim to a very simple trap near the end. Smaug would never have acted so foolishly! The lesson here – male dragons are smarter.

The acting is barely adequate, familiar to those who watch Christmas pantomimes. With all the subtlety of a typical 1980s bad guy, Brown’s emotional reactions oscillate between wooden and overly dramatic. She is still young and needs time to develop, so it’s not her fault. On screen, Ray Winstone usually exudes a captivating presence. Here, he is essentially reduced to a side character. However, it’s more the result of a script that is motivated by pushing divisive political messages.

This is nonsense driven by clichés. It’s all there. Walking slowly while dragons soar overhead? Check. While strolling leisurely through a rose garden, talk of betrayal? Yep. It seems as though it has taken all the best bits from both Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings and accomplished the impossible by ruining them. 

Last month, I lost my beloved cat. Since then, I’ve been looking for upbeat, inspirational films with positive story-lines. I watched this in an attempt to cheer me up. I wish I hadn’t bothered. In fairness, this could be attributed to the generous trailer. (Remind me why trailers these days give the plot away…) More likely, it’s the undeniable fact that creativity and enjoyment perish when ideology supplants narrative coherence.

If this is the reason for the gigantic break in filming for Stranger Things, I am cancelling my Netflix subscription.